ReScape California (formerly Bay-Friendly) Qualified Landscape Professionals

7 Principles of Bay-Friendly Landscaping & Gardening:

1. Landscape Locally: Design and maintain landscapes to promote local biodiversity and ecosystem health.
2. Landscape for Less to the Landfill: Reduce waste by choosing the right plants, avoiding invasive plant species, using recycled and salvaged products in the landscape and by composting, mulching and grasscycling plant debris.
3. Nurture the Soil: Build soil health as a means for maintaining plant and ecosystem health.
4. Conserve Water: Create drought resistant soils with compost and mulch, select plants naturally adapted to summer-dry climates, using stormwater, greywater and recycled water in the landscape as much as possible and using efficient irrigation systems that include self adjusting, weather-based controllers.
5. Conserve Energy: Reduce the need for mowing and shearing, provide shade for buildings and paved areas, use efficient outdoor lighting, and buy local landscape products.
6. Protect Water & Air Quality: Maximize permeable surfaces and minimizing stormwater runoff, using integrated pest management, minimize the use of synthetic pesticides and avoid overuse of fertilizers, reduce fossil fuel consumption, and plant trees to remove CO2 and absorb air pollutants.
7. Create Wildlife Habitat: Use native plants and increase the diversity of plant palettes, allowing our built landscape to provide food, water and shelter for birds, butterflies, beneficial insects and other creatures.